Lance

I started reading Lance Armstrong's book two days ago, It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, and have been zipping through it. I know, I know, that's soooooooooooo three or four years ago, but I'm admittedly a little slow on the trend uptake and am just now getting to it. Two things are jumping out at me: 1) He describes one and two hour training rides as hardly worth it and dismisses them. That's almost all I do. Sad face. 2) Beyond that one training observation, I really am mostly interested in the human/cancer side of the story. I thought I'd be most interested in the cycling and training aspect, but it's been very interested reading about cancer survival. I have come to realize I don't know many people with cancer and those that I do know survived and are doing well. Sadly, that is not the norm. Anyhow, I recommend the book if you haven't read it.

Purple Rain

Went to the Kiknbaque Lounge in Portland with my brother to celebrate a former-roomie's birthday and to generally enjoy some karaoke. Unfortunately, Purple Rain is stuck. For twenty miles on this morning's bike ride I kept whistling the tune. Wanna join?

Energy Saving Tip of the Week 3

This week's energy saving tip is easy and a goody. Challenge yourself to turn down the thermostat at least one degree per day for the next week. According to ACEEE, for each degree you turn down your thermostat you can expect to save 3% on your energy bill. Three percent! After one week of this you will be able to save 20% on your heating bill. So, if you can turn down your thermostat during the last few weeks of cold weather this year, you can a) Save money; b) Save Energy; and c) Prove to yourself that next winter you can survive turning down the thermostat simply by throwing on another sweater.

On the topic of energy, one of my main homies, David, alerted me to a cool website called Green As A Thistle. It was a yearlong project by a young journalist in Toronto who made one "green improvement" per day in her life and blogged about it. Just last month she finished the 365th day, but I've been reading and enjoying her stories and reviews of each change. Check it out.

Obama on Education

A couple weeks ago I complained that too many people use their time and energy to know about trivial matters like celebrity sightings, but not about hefty issues like Darfur, Iraq, or global warming. Last week Barack Obama came to Oregon and I promised to discuss specific policy issues and how his views led me to eventually support his campaign. So today I'm going live up to that promise and discuss education and personal responsibility, two fitting topics considering I plan to be a teacher in a little over a year.

A little background information is needed to understand the evolution of my presidential support. At the end of 2007 I was waffling between Bill Richardson (New Mexico's Governor) and John Edwards (former Senator from North Carolina). Richardson had the most comprehensive energy policy (renewables and efficiency) while Edwards spoke about taking on irresponsible corporations, addressing poverty, and, most importantly, personal responsibility. In the end I decided to support Richardson due to my belief that energy--production, use, pollution, etc--affects nearly all major issues. However, Edwards continued to impress me with his willingness to challenge Americans to do their part, work hard, and take responsibility for the success of the country rather than rely on the government for action. Far too often politicians want to say what they can give people rather than telling people that they must do.

Education policy reminds me of similar themes. Too often politicians say, "I'm going to give more money to schools" without addressing the hard truths that good teachers and the socio economic status of a student are better predictors of success than school funding. Not to say that fully-funding schools is not important--it certainly is--but filling schools with great teachers and making sure students are not living in poverty are far more important goals to achieve.

Below is a segment of a speech Barack Obama gave in Beaumont, TX. The first 2:45 deals with education policy and the remaining portion addresses parenting and personal responsibility. A few things to listen for:

1. After school and summer school programs are of utmost importance, especially for youth without good support at home.
2. Kids need parents!!!! No brainer, right? However, millions of children don't have food, shelter, homework support, are not being read to at night, etc. Good parenting--and this does not mean parents with lots of money, it means good parenting--has a significant correlation with a student's success in school.
   
3. Teaching to tests, as No Child Left Behind is causing our teachers to do, means we are not spending enough time on other important content (arts, civics, music, physical education, etc). Furthermore, tests should not be used as tools of punishment, rather they should be used to tell teachers what students know and what they need to work on.

If you only have a couple minutes, skip to the 2:45 mark, it demonstrates how Obama is willing to call people out on what many of them do not want to hear. I am inspired that he is willing to tell people that no matter what schools do, people (parents) must step up to the plate and make the system work.

New Bike!

Hooray! A few days ago I purchased a new bike for training and racing. It's an older Trek, a 5200 from 2000, that is similar to the bike the US Postal Service team (think Lance Armstrong) road in the Tour de France. I still have old faithful--a Giant OCR 3 from 2002--for putzing around town and in crappy weather, but my new ride is ten pounds (10 pounds!!!!) lighter, more comfortable, and makes me look uber patriotic when I'm wearing my red, white, and blue Journey of Hope uniform. The photo:

How Many Passes?

Here's a little treat:



It's poignant to me because I spend so much time on the road, vulnerable to massive hunks of metal speeding down the highway. We all catch ourselves concentrating on one thing or another while driving, something that can be deadly if a cyclist or pedestrian rolls along. So, be aware, if not for any other reason than to save my spandexed ass.

Back from the Waterfalls

Hello My Vast Readership. It's been one week sans posting, but I'm back and (hopefully) ready to write. The past week has been comprised of nearly 500 miles in the car, a couple good bike rides, and a few days camping and eating delicious trail mix. Seriously delicious. I've found--and this trip validated--that if you give me snack food I will continue to eat it whether I'm hungry or not. Snack monster. Yummy.

The camping was great. We went to Silver Falls State Park with a bunch of Serena's friends who were rad. Some of the highlights: Mike, who just had his appendix out; Brekke, a photographer and fellow cyclist; Andy, the most helpful and kind camping compatriot;

Shit, it's hailing as I write this. WTF? Where's spring?

Taza and Tammy, daring chefs of kabobs while camping; Nick, a newly-converted steamroll connoisseur; and The 'Coon who pillaged our campsite for garlic bread and butter. Lots of butter. He ate (hopefully his crew helped) an entire box of butter save half of one stick. Every evening and night he kept coming back for more, terrorizing our corner of the park. Mike and I went hunting, armed with hatchets and testosterone, only to be thwarted by the thick Oregon forests. Damn you Coon!

A video of my favorite waterfall:



And a cool photo snapped and doctored up by my new homey Brekke:


I have other videos and pictures worth sharing but they are sideways (took the picture vertically). So, a question in need of an answer: Can I upload a picture/video and rotate it here? If not, do I have to do that offline and then upload the edited picture/video? Does anyone know how to rotate a video file? As you can see, Zachary is often computer-illiterate.

Barack and Bill...

... RICHARDSON!!!! (<-more on that below) Wow, awesome, inspiring rally in Portland this morning. After braving the cold and biking to my friend Josh's house at 6:15am, he and I made our way (via public transit, per Barack's request) to Memorial Coliseum for the Obama rally.

We thought we were die-hards, arriving at 7am, half an hour before the doors open and a full two and half hours before the event started. By the time we arrived there was already one or two thousand people waiting in line. I guess that means they are Obamaniacs and Josh and I are merely Obamites. You can't be the best at everything.

Back to Richardson: When this whole campaign started I was a Richardson supporter. He was my number one, err, numerouno. Unfortunately he was never able to consistently break above the 10% ceiling in any state outside New Mexico, but after demonstrating significant support he, like John Edwards only a few weeks later, joined the elite club of "Most Sought-After Endorsements" (those two plus Al Gore make up the trifecta, not to be confused with The Trifecta of Power). At 6:30am, while printing out my official event ticket (which, btw, was simply a printed text-only email), I saw that Richardson was endorsing Obama. Hooray! My old guy was backing my new guy which in turn backed up my decision to move on to Obama. I looked at Josh, he looked at me and said, "Maybe Richardson will publicly endorse for the first time today." And he was right! We witnessed the endorsement first hand, with our own eyes and ears, very cool.

The enthusiasm and energy was phenomenal, all the way down to the golf club-holding town crier imploring people to support the impeachment of Bush. Whether you agree with Obama's policy's or not, you must admire the way he inspires millions of people. It's a breath of fresh air from modern politics. More in the next few day about specific policies... now off to bed. Enjoy the photo:

Embarking

Today marked the beginning of my two month adventure. After two hours training this morning, I spent the entire afternoon packing up my life. The itinerary:

La Grande->Portland (Obama, Brother, Ducks game)
Portland->Corvallis (Camping)
Month in Corvallis (Serena, training, racing)
Corvallis->Portland (Airport)
Portland->Charlotte (East coast trip begins)
Charlotte->Boston (Beer... full disclosure: I'm a lightweight. It's really for the historical sites.)
Boston->Portland (End of adventure)

So that's that. As I said when I began this blog, I don't know how much time for writing and access to internet there will be in the next two months, so be forewarned My Vast Readership. Any suggestions for people to see and things to do between now and the end of my adventure, let me know!

Obama in Oregon!

It's an Obama frenzy with his speech yesterday about race and the news today that he's coming to Oregon. There are events in Portland and cities to the south and I'm going to be able to attend as I head over to the west side of the state to visit Serena. Received my event ticket today. :)

There is much to be said about the presidential race, topics I will save for another day, but one is the possibility of having a president who inspires people. It's been nearly eight years with a president unable to speak articulately, evoke inspiration, or even use words correctly. All policy aside, it is a refreshing prospect to have a president who can do one of his most important jobs: speak.

That in mind, enjoy:

Energy Saving Tip of the Week

Ms. Margot, my blogging inspiration, passed me the mic for today's energy saving tip. She made a poignant point about global warming awareness that can be generalized across so many important social issues:

... I guess I found it funny that I (along with many of my friends) know all the words to this terrible song (Bubba Sparxxx, Ms. New Booty) yet many people don't do anything to prevent or deal with global warming...

So many of us--often times myself included--absorb so much trivial crap into our minds (think celebrities, tv shows, athletics, and gossip) that we can't/don't take the time to learn the policy views of the three presidential candidates, what's going on in Tibet, or why Darfur is more complicated than you may think. Perhaps for many that would make life depressing or dull, but at the very least we would be more engaged in the world we live.

That said, on to this week's energy saving tip: When using the dish washer turn off the heat dry function and simply let the dishes air dry. If you have an older dishwasher without this feature, simply turn off the washer after the final rinse cycle. Yes, you may get a couple extra spots and it will take longer for the dishes to dry, but it's a simple and effective change that saves energy and money on your electricity bill.

$4 per Gallon

I saw it, finally, yesterday. $4.15 for a gallon of diesel fuel. Granted it wasn't unleaded, but it's still put me a bit cross-eyed seeing the big 4. Actually, to be honest, I was expecting $4-plus to hit us months ago, but it didn't come until now when the markets finally closed at $100+ per barrel.

I have a few thoughts about rising gas prices, some of which may surprise folks. Let's start off with a bang: For the most part I'm a fan. No, even better: A big fan. You read right, for the most part I cheer as gas prices go up. Here's why:

We, as a nation, use too much oil. The United State's uses over 20 million barrels of gas PER DAY. That's 840 million gallons... per day... every day... just in the United States. This accounts for approximately one fourth of the entire global consumption. About half of that is for vehicles, the other half goes to a multitude of petroleum products. It's truly a phenomenal number.

So why is it bad to use that much gas? The big three:

1) Economic security: We import 65% of the oil we use. That's almost $1.5 billion dollars a day we send to other countries for a product we burn. Gone. Billions of dollars go out our collective tailpipe and into the coffers of other nations.

2) National security: We buy our oil from all over world, but some regions are more friendly to us than others. Of the Top 15 Importers many have extremist ties and funnel that money to terrorist organizations. Saudi Arabia, for example, is our second largest supplier of oil... and the largest supplier of 9/11 hijackers and nearly half the foreign fighters in Iraq. Yes, Osama does love your SUV, it pays his bills. So, we get to drive our cars in exchange for funding those that shoot at and blow up our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Great trade.

3) Environmental concerns: If you don't care about economic troubles or national security concerns, perhaps you're worried about smog and greenhouse gas emissions. Transportation in the United States accounts for nearly 1/3 of all CO2 emissions. In addition, oil extraction and transportation spills have massive environmental costs. Whether from under land, under water, or from oil shale, each method causes significant environmental degradation.

I cheer higher gas prices because it means people are more likely to walk, ride a bike, take public transportation, or share a ride. I cheer higher gas prices because it leads people to think of fuel efficiency when purchasing a new car. I cheer higher gas prices because it forces car manufacturers to develop (or re-develop as the case may be) plug-in electric cars. I cheer higher gas prices because it is the only way to get people to evaluate how they live and reduce their oil consumption. It's good for everyone... except the oil executives... and I'm okay with that.

Speaking of Celebrating

I'm back in La Grande after a short trip over to Portland for a bike race and a visit with Serena. I'm happy to report both were great. On the biking front I won my race! No need to send chocolate and cards because I was in the lowest division possible, but it sure was a great feeling. I got to thinking that this may be the high point of my cycling career. As you achieve better results in races you get bumped up to a higher level of competition, plus, I'll need to start doing steroids if I'm going to compete in this sport. Yeeks. Anyhow, there is a chance that this will be my one and only win, but for now, hooray for the win!

Hopefully pictures to come, it was a rainy day and I got a nice asphalt-mud facial.

UPDATE: The Oregon Trail Racing Team. Man I look awkward.

Short Term Goal: Check

I enjoy celebrating the little things in life: squeaking out an extra week from a tank of gas, hitting a note while singing (fyi: not a singer over here), fixing something, etc. Considering this, I thought it worthwhile to note that on Sunday this blog broke the century mark for unique visitors: Hooray! Now on to quadruple digits!

Banana Belt Part Deux

We're off to Portland this morning for another bike race, the third and final leg of the Banana Belt series. Serena's coming up from Corvallis and we're planning a have a merry ole time. Wish me luck, aka think of me in spandex, on Sunday at noon (3pm Eastern)!

DotW: Ronda, España

This week's downtown spotlight comes to rest on my favorite city in Spain: Ronda. Often relegated to third billing behind Seville and Granada within the Andalucian region, Ronda is a fantastic city with an equally wonderful downtown. I visited in January 2002 with my family and was taken immediately.

Here's a great photo of one of the pedestrian-only downtown streets of Ronda (thanks Schweich). As you can see, the street is not a simple concrete or asphalt, rather it's a colorful tile. Streets like this crisscross back and forth with many shops, bars, museums, and restaurants. During the 2002 trip I remember wandering these streets by streetlamp, a foggy haze hanging low. It was a magical, medieval evening.


A couple more photos from the fantastic Ronda:

Spanish I

Hola caballeros y caballeras. Yesterday marked the sixth and final day of substitute teaching for a Spanish teacher at the local high school. As you may or may not know, I'm planning to return to school to get my masters degree in education so I can be a high school social studies teacher. All along I've thought teaching Spanish could be cool.

Not so fast. Talk about frustrating. These kids were asking me, How do you say "in" or "the" or "to" or "from"? Really?!?! Six weeks into the term and you don't know the most simple, useful words of all (other than, of course, "Sexo, you y me?").

Random tangent: One of the students brought me popcorn every day. I'm not sure what he was getting at, I wasn't giving any grades. Perhaps he didn't know. However, had I been, he was on track because it was delicious kettle corn. Yummmmm. But I digress... back to the teaching.

The final project, which we spent a little more than two days on, was creating dialogue for a news broadcast that we would tape and watch as a class. Some of them were very frustrated, not knowing what to say or how to say it, and I thought many had shut down and given up. Then when the lights went down (they didn't really) and the camera started rolling (that did happen) the kids, for the most part, performed admirably. I was proud. They were proud. Everyone was proud, happy, excited.

I think times like that are why you become a teacher.

Banana Pancakes

Delicious.

I haven't mentioned it yet, but baking is one of my hobbies. It often comes and goes, meaning one week I'll pump something out once a day then I'll go a month before making something else. Two days ago it was dark chocolate brownies with chocolate chips and this morning it was banana pancakes. Interestingly, I was sitting in bed reading blogs/news/whatev and thought, "WTF? Why haven't I ever thought of banana pancakes before. Gotta a recipe online." A short Google search later and a couple minutes in the kitchen and I had some tasty pancakes. They were good, but the real test of their yummy factor will be next time when I'm not huuuuungy.

Youtube Spice

Nothing like a little Youtube clip to spice up the day. This little nugget is a favorite thanks to the little boy's performance. A bit predictable (I've been told that calling something "predictable" shows insight), yet charming. Enjoy:

Gardening

The weather has finally turned (yes, I knocked on wood) here in La Grande which has ignited an itch to build. The past few days our backyard/garden has been a construction site with the sounds of the hammer, saw, and shovel mixed with singing birds happy to see spring. The goal: completely closing in the garden with raised beds and filling them with new topsoil. Today I drove the final nail. Now the unveiling of the finished product:



Note the handsome University of Oregon "O" while taking the picture. Shadows rarely lie.

Youtube Question

What is going on with Youtube? A couple weeks ago they turned off the ability to sort video searches except for by relevance. A few days later they allowed users to sort by relevance and date. I saw the trend and figured it would only be a matter of days until they made all the sorting options available. I waited... to no avail. No longer can you sort searches by view count or rating. What's the story here? Is it me or Youtube?

Energy Saving Tip of the Week

Welcome to the second of two recurring installment programs found on this blog: the Energy Saving Tip of the Week. Like Downtown of the Week, I will highlight an energy saving tip you can implement in your daily life to save some $ and this. Sometimes it will be through the implementation of technology, sometimes a change in behavior, but each will be a change that is attainable (ie I'm not going to recommend that you build a house oriented to the south, insulated with stray bales, and that runs off of photovoltaic electricity... though that would be cool.).

This week's tip:

Turn off the water while brushing your teeth. Most faucets run about 1 gallon/minute, take a moment to calculate how much water you can save from one of your ordinary brushing sessions. This also saves energy! Water down the drain is water that must be sanitized through the local water plant. This process takes energy that causes greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, if you use warm water to brush then you will save even more energy using this tip because it takes energy to warm the water going down the drain! Additional perks? Fitness for your forearms and a lower water bill (every cent counts!).

Elonski Basketball

Rarely do I get the chance to boast about my alma matre's sporting exploits. With the exception of our baseball team it's hit or miss, well mostly miss, with the rest of the teams. However, tonight Elon matches up against Davidson with the winner heading to The Big Dance. The Big Dance!!!! So, as I type I'm watching the game get started... you heard that right: Elon is on the tube in Oregon. So off to watch the game.
Body paint and biceps. H.O.T.

UPDATE: Down 30-22 at half.

UPDATE 2: Down 45-39 with eight minutes to go

FINAL UPDATE: Lost 65-49. Looks worse than it was. We were down five with about four minutes left and they went on a run to put us away. We were close!

Le Tired

Just rolled into La Grande from the Banana Belt bike race in Portland and am muy tired. It was a great trip, though lots of driving for two hours of racing, and I ended up with a respectable 7th place finish. Not only are my legs tired, but my brain as well, so off to bed. Goodnight moon.

The Car Crash, Part III

The Observer covered the crazy crash in the paper yesterday. All words, no pictures. Devastating.

It's a Race!

Thanks to the encouragement of an old high school classmate I'm following through with a longtime interest: bicycle racing. Last month we went to Corvallis, OR for the opening race of the season and today we're off to Portland for the Banana Belt race. My training regimen hasn't been very rigorous--let's be honest, yesterday on a ride I got a flat and instead of fixing it I walked to my old golf coach's house and he gave me a ride home--so winning is probably out the picture. Still, it's a ton of fun experiencing the unique thrill of barreling down the road in a peloton.

Wyoming Caucus Today

"WCT." Sounds like a semi-pro wrestling circuit. Instead, it's the Democratic presidential primary caucus in Wyoming. Six months ago no one thought Wyoming would matter. Shoot, when was the last time Wyoming mattered... at least they've got pretty mountains and Yellowstone, two of my favorites. However this year they do matter. It's less about the delegates--there are only 12 up for grabs and they will split them fairly evenly no matter what happens--and more about momentum. Hillary's got it after last Tuesday and Barack wants it back. I'm predicting an Obama win, 54% vs 45% (somebody'll vote for Gravel), resulting in 7 delegates for Obama, 5 for Hillary.

Downtown of the Week

One of my interest that has recently blossomed is an appreciation for great downtowns. One of the first things I look for when visiting a new place is the quality of the downtown. What characterizes a good downtown? Here are some of the criteria, in no particular order of importance, with no claim of being a comprehensive list:

• Pedestrian friendly: There's little I enjoy more than a stroll downtown where pedestrians are king. If downtowns were rated on a 1-10 scale, pedestrian-only downtowns would get a 10 while a car-centric approach (think Island City Strip in LG or South Church Street in Burlington, NC) gets a 1.
• Public transportation: The widespread availability of affordable public transportation is a big plus.
  
• Roundabouts: Love'em.
• Dining: Unique, one-of-a-kind dining and bar options are a must.
• Commerce: Hundreds, if not thousands, of wonderful downtowns have been ruined by the mass exodus of all the businesses. Either they have gone out of business due to competition from big box stores or have moved to the nearest stripmall that caters to the car with their endless expanses of pavement.
• Traffic: Not your traditional traffic, rather, traffic in terms of the number of people patronizing the businesses and services provided. A dead downtown is a dud downtown.
  

So what municipality, you must be asking, headlines the first installment of Downtown of the Week? Denver, Colorado.

Denver is a double dipper: the pedestrian-only downtown is fantastic (see photo). With just a few cross streets, people can wander about and, as you can see from the photo (right hand side), there is a free shuttle that runs the entire 13 block pedestrian mall (13 blocks!!!!!). There are tons of people, lots of shopping, and entertainment all over the place. Rad.

The second flavor of Denver is Civic Center Park (see photo, thanks Ke4roh!). Here you will find the State Capitol Building, a huge park with an amphitheatre, the state supreme court, and the Frank Gehry-designed Denver Art Museum (follow the link, it's a phenomenal design). The park, located right next to the pedestrian mall, gives the entire downtown great continuity.Quick story: During the Journey of Hope in 2003 we had one of the biggest police escorts of the summer for the arrival into Denver. Only a few blocks from the capitol a lady ran a red light and hit an motorcycle officer who was blocking the street. Seriously, how do you miss 30 hotty cyclists and a boat of cops?

So that's that, the first installment of DotW. Tune back in next Friday.

2nd & O: Medialess

Evidently the most spectacular car crash in recent La Grande memory isn't enough to roust out a reporter from the local paper. As a result, the pictures and official story I promised are going undelivered. Well, at least for now. News is that the girl driving was life-flighted to Boise and is still alive. Maybe tomorrow will be a slow news day and there will be space on the front page. I mean, they wouldn't want to bump the Pink Glasses Baby. Front page news is competitive business around here, get used to it.

Not only is 2nd & O medialess, it's photographerless. I tried to snap a few shots last night with my trusty Canon Powershot, but either it was not up to the task or, more likely, the operator was vastly underskilled.

Entering the Field

So teaching is fun. Today marked the beginning of a six day substitution for one of the high school Spanish teachers. She's gone on a trip... okay, well, it's conference that happens to be at Disneyland. Needless to say her kids are thrilled.

Today we played a name game (sorry, "activity", holler back ICLP!) and I am sad to report that in both classes of 25 students who have been together for eight weeks the vast majority do not know each other's names. We sought to rectify the deficit and it was a good time had by all, especially the kid who got hit in the family jewels with the ball we were using. C'est la vie. Whoops! Es la vida.

The three major objectives while I'm there:

• I have a Phrase-o-the-Day that is an important word or phrase that they'll use a lot. Today was vamos. ie Vamos a la fiesta? or Vamos chicas! or Vamos a ser chevere.
  
• We are learning -AR verbs and how to conjugate them. Grammar is fun.
• They identified six words or phrases they thought were very important in their lives. You may wonder what high school freshmen (it's Spanish I) would put on this list. For that I have answers: Cool/sweet, I don't care, and the ever popular: Shut up. Let's be honest, it's functional.

On to tomorrow where they'll be practicing conjugations through charts and crossword puzzles! Tell me your favorite Spanish word/phrase and I'll pass it on.

So Let's Start Off With A BANG

Woah. Preparing for a big day tomorrow (more on that, well, tomorrow) and am up fairly late when I hear a big "thud!" outside the house. By the time I'm out of my bed looking out the window, two cops were in the intersection with lights and sirens blaring, illuminating a huge cloud of dust. They continued on and I figured it was simply a chase, nothing more.

Wrong. The thud wasn't from the car bottoming out where I looked out the window, but instead from the car crashing into the tree across the street from my house. About a quarter hour after the crash I heard conversation outside and my pops said he had to show me something. The entire lower level of our house was illuminated in red and blue; the block was blanketed by cop cars.

The car had hit the curb where I saw the dust and then swerved across the road and hit our lawn. Thirty feet later it hit our lawn for the second time and caused the vehicle to fly into the air, hit the street sign, and crush into the tree across the street. The driver, drunk and going approximate 80-90mph according to the cops, was thrown from the car. She was visibly uninjured, but you never know what happens under the skin when that kind of force is involved. Look for pictures tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, I'm substitute teaching in Spanish. Perhaps I should teach them "choque" which means "crash." Now, to get rid of these jitters and get some sleep. I say again, Woah.

Bienvenido

Welcome! Usually it's just my red room, but starting today it's Your Red Room. Nothing like some capital letters, a modification of the possessive pronoun, and a little thinking outside the box.

Inspiration for this blog came not from societal need, but from three blogs I read regularly and a friend who just started a blog of her own. Who knows how long it will last, perhaps until I begin traveling, maybe when I return to school, or, if all goes well, foooorrrrrreeeeeeevvvvvvvveeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr. Comment fodder: What's the movie where the character says "Forever" and draws the word way out? Little Rascals?

I'm going to be a teacher and one technique to help students learn is to always offer a summary of what they can expect from the lesson. Using that theme, here's a sampling of subjects that you can expect from this blog:

• Energy
• Government
• Pedestrian-friendly downtowns
• My Pet Projects
• Sports
• Oregon
• Electric cars and roundabouts (No link. Unpredictable.)

Don't worry--I know you were--there are little to no plans on continuing to be a link freak, it's just that I am new at this and trying to get the hang of it. Bear with me.

With that we begin the long, sardonic ride on the bomb.